Brother's Keeper
by scarlet79
Summary: Collection of one-shots about the Winchester brothers, and how they keep an eye out for each other. No slash! Rated T for language.
1. Backstitching

_AN: I don't know where this came from, but I decided that it was a good story, so here ya go! _

_Summary: Collection of one-shots about the Winchester brothers, and how they keep an eye out for each other. _

_Author: scarlet79_

_Rating: T (for language)_

_Disclaimer: Alas, I own nothing in the Supernatural-verse. If I did, well, there'd be a whole lot more fun going on at my house, I'll tell you that!_

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Brother's Keeper

"Backstitching"

* * *

The first time Sam sewed Dean up, they were teenagers. A dark elf – cantankerous and even more murderous than usual – had sliced a thick gash in the elder Winchester's back. Blood poured from the wound, soaking into his brand new jeans and smearing on the Impala's leather seats, but Dean was more upset about the car than his pants.

"Make sure this gets cleaned up," he told Sam, who was driving while Dean reclined in the passenger seat, trying not to pass out. He needed to stay awake, to make sure Sam took care of his Baby.

"Dean, relax," fifteen-year-old Sam said, "I'll take care of it."

Dean nodded, suddenly too tired to comment further. Sam noticed the silence and reached over to nudge his brother with the back of his hand.

"Hey," he said, quickly glancing at Dean before shifting his eyes back to the road. "C'mon, Dean. Stay awake."

"I'm tryin!" Dean growled, though his voice had lost much of its edge. "Burns like hell."

The motel was just ahead. Sam made the right turn into the pot-holed parking lot, wincing as the front right tire briefly sank into one such hole, jarring them uncomfortably. Dean grunted at the jolting pain and glowered at Sam, but kept his mouth shut. Sam knew then that his wound must have been serious, as Dean normally would have at least cursed aloud.

"Okay," Sam said as he screeched the Impala to a stop and shut off the ignition. "We're here."

It took nearly all the strength in Sam's thin frame to help Dean out of the car and into the shabby building, and by the time he'd sat Dean in the ripped vinyl chair by the door, Sam was sweating and gasping for breath. Stripping off Dean's torn shirt, Sam tossed it in the waste basket, whistling softly at the damage the wood elf had caused. He pulled open their medical kit and started laying the necessary tools out, then handed Dean a bottle with a small amount of amber liquid inside. Wordlessly, the injured brother unscrewed the cap, tipped the bottle up and took a big gulp. As he swallowed it, he handed the bottle back to Sam, nodding as he did.

"Ready?" Sam asked, and Dean frowned.

"Didja see me nod?"

Sam's jaw clenched, but he let the angry reply go without answer. He knew Dean was just in pain, and probably tired, too. They were always tired these days.

Tipping the bottle of liquor, Sam poured the remaining inch or so inside onto Dean's wound. Dean's breath hissed out between clenched teeth and his hazel eyes squeezed shut, but he remained completely still. Sam blew his hair out of his eyes and carefully threaded the needle, knotting the heavy-gauge thread at the ends. He took a step toward Dean's ragged shoulder, then hesitated, his hand in mid-air.

Dean's left eye cracked open, and he frowned. "What're you waiting for?"

"Maybe..." Sam's voice squeaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Maybe I should try and call Dad."

Dean shook his head. "No. By the time he can get here I'll have some God-awful infection. You can do this."

"But, Dean..."

"Sam," Dean's nineteen-year-old voice, already deep and full of warning, cut through the air. "Stop being such a girl. You can _do_ this."

Sam looked from his hand, still holding the needle, to Dean's back. So, Dean thought he was acting like a girl, did he? Okay, maybe it was time to show him what he could do.

Sighing out a "fine", Sam held his breath and cautiously slipped the sewing needle into Dean's torn skin. His hands shook at first, but as he went on, keeping his stitches neat and even, his confidence grew. When he was halfway done, he leaned forward and checked Dean's face for any sign of faintness.

"You okay?" He asked. Dean nodded. "Good. Almost done."

"Any whiskey left?"

Sam shook his head. "Sorry. I can run out and get some after?"

"No, that's okay. Just finish this up so I can catch some sleep."

Five minutes later, Dean's shoulder was cleaned and bandaged, and under the gauze a neat row of stitches ran from his shoulder blade and down three inches. Sam ripped a final piece of medical tape off the roll and secured the bandage, then stood back to admire his work. He heaved a relieved sigh as Dean turned his back toward the mirror above the dresser and looked over his shoulder, then nodded somberly.

"Did a good job, Sammy," Dean noted.

Sam tried to smile, but it came out crooked. Instead, he ducked his head and went to work cleaning up the blood-stained sheets and gauze he'd used.

Dean watched his little – well, younger, but definitely not smaller – brother intently. Sam was only fifteen, right on the edge between boy and man. He'd only just mastered the fine art of kissing – Dean had caught Sam and a shy brunette named Kelly in a barely-used hallway at his school – and yet here he was, hunting monsters and sewing his big brother up.

Dean thought of what their dad would say when he saw Dean's shoulder, when he discovered that Sam had been the one to patch him up, and a frown darkened his face.

_Dad._

_Left me in charge again, while he runs some hunt two states away._

The being-in-charge part was fine with Dean. Sam was a pretty good kid, and as long as there was a library within five miles of whatever horrible motel they were camped in, he was happier than a pig in shit. Meanwhile, that left Dean free to drop into the nearest bar, play a few games of pool, maybe find a cute girl to have fun with. He always won out at pool – usually walking away with a couple hundred bucks – and more often than not he left with a beauty on his arm.

He knew Sam disapproved of his...activities. But hustling pool was how they made money to live on. The cash Dad left them never quite lasted until he got back, and sometimes he was gone longer than he'd told them to expect him. How else did Sam think they were going to eat, to be able to stay another week at the motel?

But of course, Dean never told Sam when Dad's money ran out. He didn't want Sam to worry, and the kid already worried enough for the both of them. When Dad was late, Sam paced around the room like a caged animal, peeking through the blinds to the parking lot every five minutes, as if he checked long enough, Dad's truck would suddenly materialize. When they stumbled across a job and Dean got hurt, Sam pestered him with enough are-you-okays that Dean ended up yelling at him to shut up.

But really, Dean understood why Sam did it. With Mom dead and Dad gone, Dean was his only family left. And if something happened and Dean died, Sam would be alone. It was Sam's worst fear – being left to fend for himself in the big wide world. He could do it if he had to – Dad and Dean had taught him well – but he didn't want to. Family was everything to Sam. Knowing where his place was, that he _had_ a place at all, was what kept him feeling secure.

There were monsters out there, but as long as there was someone – like Dean – fighting alongside him, those monsters couldn't scare him.

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_Next chapter to follow..._


	2. Stay

_AN: Sammy's turn! YAY!_

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Brother's Keeper

by scarlet79

"Stay"

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Dean had never seen his brother this sick before.

Sam was curled up on the bathroom floor, the blanket from the motel bed wrapped around his shivering frame. His face was sweaty and pale, with a slight tinge of green around the edges. According to Sam himself, he'd already thrown up three times, and every breath he took made him feel like doing it again.

Dean didn't want to leave him laying there, but there was no way he could pick Sam up and carry him, and Sam certainly didn't look up to the task of walking from the bathroom to the bed. Kneeling down on the floor beside Sam, Dean put a hand to his brother's forehead and then jerked it away again. Sam's skin was burning with fever, and Dean swallowed against the panic that rose in his own throat.

"Sammy?" He called softly to the younger Winchester.

Sam blinked hazily and then peered back at him. "Yeah?" He croaked, licking his desert-dry lips.

"We gotta get you off this floor, get you to bed."

Sam groaned at the thought of moving even an inch. "Dean, I can't," he whimpered. "Please, just let me stay here."

"Sorry, Sam, but that cold floor's only gonna make you worse." Dean reached down and wrapped his arms around Sam's chest, slowly lifting him up. "C'mon."

Carefully, they worked together to get Sam on his feet, then shuffled to the bed. Dean gently folded Sam's legs up onto the mattress, taking a moment to brush his hand across Sam's forehead under the guise of testing his temperature. Dean's shoulders ached from carrying Sam's weight, but he wouldn't complain. He was a Winchester, after all, and there were no crybabies in their family. Besides, he really didn't mind, as long as it was Sammy. They might've been born four years apart, but sometimes they were so close that they might as well have been twins.

His eyes closed against the bright light of the April sun, Sam heard his brother's footsteps fading away, and panic gripped him. He couldn't do this on his own; he felt so sick he was sure he was going to die. But then, Dean was stepping back over to the bed, and he bent over to place something on the floor. A cool cloth was pressed to Sam's forehead, and even though it made him shiver it felt so good that he didn't care. It was better than the suffocating heat he'd been feeling for the past few hours.

"Better?" Dean's voice murmured, and Sam nodded. "You want some water?"

Sam shook his head as hard as he could without drowning in a wave of nausea. "Can't keep anything down."

"You still need to stay hydrated," Dean argued, moving away to fetch a glass of water from the kitchenette. When he came back, he sat on the edge of the bed and slipped his hand under Sam's head, then carefully lifted him up so he could take a sip. Satisfied, at least for now, Dean laid him back down and set the glass aside.

"Shouldn't get too close," Sam murmured then, his eyes still closed. "Might be contagious."

Dean shrugged even though Sam didn't see it. "I'll take my chances."

Two hours and six bouts of vomiting later - which was what the ice bucket Dean had placed on the floor was for - Dean was still beside him, his hand resting lightly on Sam's sweat-dampened hair. The blanket had been kicked off and then pulled back up a total of ten times, and it was just about to make the trip to the bottom of the bed again when Dean's phone rang. Not wanting to disturb Sam, Dean quickly slid off the bed and stepped out into the parking lot.

"Hello?" Dean said quietly. His foot, clad in a black steel-toe boot, was jammed in the space between the door and the frame, keeping it open.

"Dean, it's Dad." Dean fought the urge to beg their father to come home, and instead waited for the statement he knew was coming next. "Got a job for you in Kansas."

"Dean?"

"Dammit," Dean cursed under his breath. He hadn't noticed the door opening, hadn't seen Sam standing there, wavering on his feet, until that very moment.

"Dean, what's going on?" Sam asked.

"Nothin', Sammy. Get back to bed."

Sam eyed him, but finally turned and walked – no, staggered – back to the bed, once more curling up in a fetal position as he pretended to watch TV.

"What's going on there?" John Winchester asked, his voice brisk, demanding an answer from his eldest.

"Sam's sick, Dad."

There was silence on the other end for so long that Dean thought the connection had been lost. Then, in a gentler tone their father asked, "How bad?"

"Pretty bad."

Another pause. Then, "Can you handle it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay, then. I'll call Bobby, see who else we can get to Kansas."

Dean breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, Dad."

"It's fine. You just stay there, take care of your brother."

"Goodbye..." Dean began, but then realized the line had already gone dead on the other end.

When he stepped back inside the motel room, Sam's eyes searched his face, desperate to know how the conversation with their dad had gone. Dean stood in the middle of the room for a moment, unsure at first what to do next. Then, he rubbed a hand over his mouth, slipped the phone back into his pocket, and sank down onto the bed beside Sam.

His fingers pushed a stray lock of hair off Sam's forehead, and he silently rejoiced at the fact that his fever finally had seemed to break. Sam opened his eyes to gaze at his brother, and he asked, "Are you leaving, Dean?

Dean grinned and patted his baby brother's back. "No, Sammy. Dad said I should stay."

Sam nodded somberly, though inside he was as happy as could be. Closing his eyes again, he snuggled deeper into the covers and let out a sigh.

"Good."

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_Next chapter to follow..._


	3. Bursting Seams

_AN: Here's another shorty-short story. Oh, and yes, in case anyone was wondering, all of my story titles have "sewing" titles. It's kind of my other passion, so I figured why not put the two together? _

_Anyway, please enjoy!_

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Brother's Keeper

by scarlet79

"Bursting Seams"

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"Sam, stop!"

Dean ran toward the crowd in the alley, his sixteen-year-old legs pumping as fast as they could. When he finally reached the group of teenagers, he shoved his shoulder between two of them, snarling at the one who shouted "Hey!" at him. Reaching down, he plucked Sam up off the ground, yanking him out of the semi-circle of boys. As he moved, his eyes took in the other kid's face, and Dean was secretly glad for the black eye. It meant that Sam, as young as he was, could fight pretty well.

The kid scrambled to his feet, then spat out a mouthful of blood, pointing at the brothers.

"You're gonna pay, you little bastard!" he shouted, glancing down at his shirt, which now hung in tatters around his torso.

Pushing Sam behind him, Dean swung to face the crowd, putting on his most intimidating glare.

"You leave my brother alone, or I'll kick your asses into next month!" He threatened them, taking an extra moment to scowl at the kid with the black eye. The one Sam had been fighting.

As they quickly slipped away, he rounded on his brother once more. "And you! What the hell did you think you were doing?"

Sam, at 12 already almost as tall as his brother, curled his lip defiantly and spat, "He started it."

"I don't care who started it!" Dean shouted at him. "Do you have any idea what Dad's gonna say when he sees that fat lip of yours? You think he'll care who started it? No fighting; that's Dad's number one top rule, Sam!"

"He's not gonna say shit," Sam replied, his voice soft at first, but quickly growing in volume as he went on, "because he's not here. He left for Chicago this morning, and if you had been at the motel instead of screwing some chick in the back of her car all night, you'd know that!"

Dean opened his mouth to scold Sam for swearing, but shut it in surprise as he took in what he'd said. _Dad was gone?_ "He left?"

Sam scoffed, wiping his split lip on the cuff of his shirt. It left a wide smear of blood behind, but Sam didn't seem to notice. "Yeah. Said he'd be back Thursday."

That figured. Their dad was in the hunting business, and right now, business was good. He looked at Sam and noticed how mad the younger boy was, saw the familiar shine of frustrated tears in his hazel eyes.

Gruffly, maybe a little too much so, Dean just said, "Get in the car, and let's go home."

On the short ride back to the motel, Dean tried a dozen different times to start a conversation, but Sam was definitely not in the mood to cooperate. He just sat in the passenger's seat, his wiry arms folded over his chest, staring blankly out the window. Dean gave up and concentrated on the pavement whizzing by under the black Impala, seeing the white and yellow lines but not comprehending them. After being in this town for six months – their longest stint yet – he'd driven the route from school to the motel so many times that he could've driven it in his sleep.

It wasn't until later that night, after a dinner of Spaghetti-O's – which Sam complained about, of course – when they were laying in bed with the lights off, that Sam finally revealed the reason he'd been fighting a teenager three full years older than he was.

"He said our family was full of freaks," Sam murmured, his voice thick with unshed tears. "That Dad was a no-good loser, and you were a...a dickhead. Then he pushed me and called me a wimp." He put up a good fight against the tears, but the pain he felt inside won out and they trickled down his face, falling on his pillow.

Dean's heart squeezed hard in his chest, and at that moment he really felt that he deserved being called a dickhead. He pushed his covers back and slipped out of bed, climbing in beside Sam instead. His hands gathered his brother against his chest, and Sam's big wide eyes looked up at him in the dark. Even in such dim light, Dean could see the tear-stains on Sam's face. He might be as tall as Dean, but Sam was definitely still a kid inside.

"You're not a freak, or a wimp, Sam," Dean assured him. "That guy doesn't know you. He don't know any of us, so just forget what he said, okay?"

"I hate them," Sam whispered, boldly staring Dean straight in the eye, daring him to say something, anything to the contrary. "They think that 'cause I'm skinny, I'm weak."

"I know."

"I don't wanna go to school any more. Can't I just stay here?"

Dean shook his head. "No, Sammy. You gotta go."

Sam pressed his forehead against Dean's chest, a sob hitching his body. "Please, Dean!"

He wanted to say yes. He would say anything right now if it stopped Sam from crying. God, how he wished their Dad was there right then. He would know how to handle this, and even if he didn't, he could just order Sam to stop his foolishness and go to sleep, and the boy would listen. Listening to Sam cry, knowing how scared he must feel, Dean felt like his heart was breaking, or that it was swelling so big that it would burst at the seams. He wasn't sure how much longer he could do this on his own.

Running his hand over Sam's hair, Dean murmured, "I'm sorry. But I promise, I'll be there for you whenever I can."

Sam made a skeptical noise. "You can't promise that. You have to go to class, too."

"I know. But I can make sure you're safe, that no one picks on you again."

Sam looked up at him again. Wiping tears from his cheeks, he asked, "How?"

"You let me worry about that, okay?" Dean replied, squeezing his arms around Sam and then reluctantly pressing his lips to the top of the boy's head. "Just get some sleep now."

"Okay." Sam settled down into his covers, and once he was tucked in, Dean got back into his own bed.

"Dean?" Sam said after a long pause, during which Dean had been going through his list of friends, wondering which of them he could get to pull guard duty on Sam while Dean was stuck in class. He would skip out and protect Sam himself, but Dad would be majorly pissed if he found out Dean was cutting class, even if he had a good reason. And Dad_ would_ find out; he always did.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry I swore. But I'm not sorry I was fighting."

Dean smiled in the darkness. "You know what, Sammy?"

"What?"

"Me either."

He heard Sam utter a sigh, and then his voice, which had yet to drop into the register he would have as an adult, said, "Thanks, Dean. I love you."

Dean started to make a sarcastic reply, but something stopped him and made his hand stretch out in the black space between their beds. His fingers brushed Sam's, and he gripped them, squeezing them lightly.

"Love you, too, little brother."

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_Next story to follow..._


	4. Raw Edges

Brother's Keeper

by scarlet79

"Raw Edges"

* * *

Jess was gone.

Sam stood in front of her grave in the darkened cemetery, his vision blurred by tears. She was his first true love, the person he thought he could spend his whole life with. But now she was dead, taken by the same monster that had taken his mother. He couldn't help but feel angry, not just at whatever this thing was, but at his family. If Dean hadn't come back asking for help, if Dad hadn't gone missing in the first place, none of this would've happened.

She'd still be here, and they'd be happy.

Sam crouched down and traced his fingers across her name, engraved into the cold stone. She had been such a beautiful, caring person, so full of life. It felt wrong, the cool granite under his hand. Cold equaled death, oblivion, and he couldn't stand the fact that her body, whatever was left after the intense fire that had ripped through their bedroom, was lying in the cold ground, surrounded by dirt and rock. He wanted her to be standing here, beside him, her warm hand laid comfortingly on his bicep.

Not down there.

Not down there, gone away from him forever.

The tears stung his eyes again, but he angrily wiped them away. None of this was fair! He just wanted to be happy – to feel safe. Why was that so wrong? Why was he doomed to a life on the road, searching for their missing father as they hunted down evil creatures, instead of becoming a successful lawyer with a wife and maybe a kid or two? It was all he ever wanted, and in a matter of moments it was all ripped away from him. Jess dead, Dad missing and possibly in danger...it was all too much for him.

He hadn't even realized he'd been crying, actually weeping, until his knees gave out and he sank to the grass, his hands gripping Jessica's headstone as if it were the only thing keeping him from being swept away in a storm. His tears were hot, and they reminded him of the way she'd died, pinned to the ceiling, her belly ripped open, her mouth opened in a silent scream just before white-hot flames burst from her body and engulfed the room. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was, for everything she went through because of him, but it was too late.

She was in Heaven now.

That thought brought his mind to a screeching halt. _Was_ she in Heaven? He shook his head. Of course she was. She was a good person, and Heaven was where good people ended up.

Right?

A hand, large and firm but gentle, laid on his shoulder.

Dean.

"I'm sorry, Sammy. Really."

At the sound of his nickname – the name of a child – Sam suddenly sprang to his feet and whirled around to face his brother.

"No, you're not!" he shouted angrily.

"Sammy..."

"Stop calling me that!" Sam cried, shoving Dean away from him with both hands. Dean stumbled backward a few feet, but caught himself before he tripped over a headstone. "My name's Sam!" he choked back a sob, his frown deepening. "And this is all your fault!"

"I know," Dean said quietly. His chest stung from the blow, but he resisted the urge to rub it. He guessed that he'd deserved it, after all.

"If you hadn't come here and convinced me to help you look for Dad, she'd still be alive! I was finally gonna be _happy_, Dean! I was gonna have a good job, a family of my own! Why did you have to ruin it? Why?"

Dean's jaw muscle worked, but he said nothing.

"It must really piss you off, me going off and actually being happy with who I am. Finding someone I could settle down with, having a job that doesn't require stitches at the end of the night. How dare I want something like that, right? How dare I leave you and Dad to follow my own dreams!"

"That's all they _are_, Sam!" Dean finally shouted back. "Dreams! You _know_ what's really out there, under the surface! You had to know that something like this would've happened eventually, whether I was around or not! Changing your life or your job doesn't change your last name, Sam. You wanna know what you are? You're a Winchester. And because of that, something would've come looking for you sooner or later!"

"She didn't deserve to die!" Sam gestured at the grave for emphasis.

"I know! And I'm not gonna stand here and tell you to suck it up and move on, because I know how much you loved her. Those feelings don't just go away overnight. But what I _am_ saying, is that this creature – whatever it is that killed our mom and Jess – it's still out there, somewhere. We have to find it before it takes another innocent person!"

Sam visibly deflated at that. Dean was right, of course, but that wouldn't keep Sam from being pissed off, hurt, whatever the hell it was that he was feeling right now.

"Look, Sam," Dean began, watching Sam to see if he would strike out at him again. When nothing came, he went on, "I really _am_ sorry this all happened. There couldn't have been a nicer girl, and you sure as hell didn't deserve it, either. But the fact is that it happened. It's done, and there's nothing else we can do about it now, except find the sonofabitch that did it and put a bullet in it."

The younger Winchester nodded sadly. He tried to say something, to tell Dean he was right, and that he was sorry, but his throat felt raw, as if he'd been screaming at the top of his lungs for an hour straight. Instead, he turned and knelt again in front of the headstone, whispered something, and then stood and walked away toward the Impala.

Dean followed after him, stopping in front of the driver's side door. Looking at Sam over the slick black roof of the car, he asked, "You ready?"

Sam glanced back once more toward Jessica's plot, then nodded and pulled open his door.

"Yeah. Let's go."

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_Next chapter to follow..._


	5. Letting It Out

_AN: Okay, just so you know, the name of the band Dean's trying to remember is **Safetysuit**. I made Dean mess it up because my hubby - who is also a classic rock/Johnny Cash freak and acts a lot like Dean sometimes- messes it up on purpose because he doesn't like them, and he knows I love them. He's not really doing it to be mean. He thinks it's cute when I get all "It's SafetySUIT, babe!"_

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Brother's Keeper

by scarlet79

"Letting It Out"

* * *

Sam's music was driving Dean crazy.

All that happy, sappy forever-love type crap – it was so overused. Trite, Sam would say, just before turning up his stupid Lifevest or Safetyshirt or whatever the hell this band was called. Metallica, Black Sabbath, heck even – occasionally – Bon Jovi; all those were bands Dean could listen to for hours on end. They had good road-trip songs, music that got your feet tappin', your head bangin'.

Not this pop music. It made him want to grab the plastic spoon in the ashtray and dig his eyes out with it.

And yet, here he was, driving down the longest godforsaken road in Pennsylvania, or maybe Virginia by now, with some song about "letting go" blaring from the speakers. Dean wanted to ignore it, but the chorus was literally making his teeth clench so hard his jaw hurt. He moved his hand to turn the radio down, but then glanced at Sam and changed his mind.

The look on his brother's face – the one he'd been wearing since they left New York – was the very reason he was allowing this "music" in his car in the first place. Sam's eyes held a sort of shocked sadness, his lower lip trembled with the effort of trying to hold his emotions in check. His long fingers doodled aimlessly on the foggy window, and Dean grimaced as he silently sighed that those would be there all winter, and endless reminder of this very day.

Finally, the song ended, and Dean pushed the power button on the stereo. Sam turned to look at him, and he shrugged apologetically, unable to stand any more, at least for now. Sam looked back out the window.

"Listen, Sam," Dean sighed. "What happened back there...it wasn't your fault."

Sam huffed, and his breath fogged the window again, creating a blank slate for more doodles.

"If I'd figured out my vision sooner, we could've saved 'em," he muttered.

"Okay," Dean reluctantly agreed. "But it was different in your vision than in reality. We thought it was the dad's ghost, not the sister's."

Sam shrugged. "So? It obviously doesn't matter now, does it? Three people are still _dead_, Dean. Doesn't that bother you?"

"'Course it does." Sam muttered something then, and Dean said, "What was that?"

"I said, 'doesn't seem like it'."

The Impala slammed to a stop so quickly that Sam had to brace his hands against the dashboard to keep from being tossed against the windshield. Dean threw the shifter in park, then turned to glare at his brother.

"What do you want me to do, Sam? The parents are dead. The teenaged brother is dead. The girl's grandma – who's the only sane person in that family, I might add – has agreed to raise her. Yes, I'm pissed we couldn't save them all. But we did rescue the girl, and if all we save is one person, well then, we've done our job."

Sam rested his head against the window frame. "You really don't get it."

"Get what, Sam?"

Angry now, the younger Winchester turned his eyes to the elder and shouted, "That girl is another orphan! Like us! Like a dozen other kids we've tried to help. She's gonna grow up without a mom and dad, unable to remember them any other way besides in pictures. Can you remember how that feels, Dean? Because I do, and sometimes it hurts so bad, I just wanna scream and never stop."

He turned away again, staring blankly through the mist-coated glass of his window. His voice sad, he said, "I never want another kid to feel like I do. Ever."

Dean sat there for a moment, mulling over Sam's words. Yes, he did remember what if felt like growing up without Mom. He walked around every day with what felt like a gaping hole in his chest. And with Dad always gone on hunts, it sometimes felt like he was dead, too. Of course, now he really was dead, and so Dean and Sam really were orphans – grown-up orphans, but still. But as he'd just told Sam, they had tried their best. Call it fate, coincidence, luck – whatever – but they'd come up short. They had managed to pull Johanna, the little girl, out of harm's way, though, and in Dean's book that counted for something.

It had to, or else everything they were doing was meaningless.

Dean didn't think he could handle it if that was the case.

"Okay," Dean whispered. Then, clearing his throat, he started again. "Okay. I get it."

"You do." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah. But now you gotta get what _I'm_ sayin'."

Sam nodded.

"We can't save 'em all. We can try, and we tried damn hard tonight, but sometimes we just gotta let 'em go."

He watched Sam's eyes, letting that sink in, and then put the Impala back in drive and pulled out onto the road.

They drove in silence for a few miles, lost in their own thoughts. Soon, the quiet started to get to Dean, and he flipped the radio on. Turning the dial, all he found was static, and with a loud huff he turned it off again.

Sam made a noise and held up his iPod, a hopeful look on his face.

Dean groaned and said, "No way. If I hear one more song about unrequited love I'm gonna beat you to a bloody pulp."

Sam turned up the puppy-dog eyes all the way. "Please? I'll try and find something even you can live with."

"Ugh, fine!" Dean cried, throwing his hands up in surrender. Sam grinned happily and plugged in the iPod, shuffling through the song menu.

"Aha!" He said a few moments later. "This one's good."

His finger clicked "play", and drums immediately started beating out a rapid tempo. Sam leaned back and nodded his head to the beat, and Dean gave his non-committal half-shrug.

"What's this called?" he asked Sam, whose grin widened until all his teeth showed.

"Crash."

Dean's eyes popped out of his head. "What're you tryin' to do, jinx us? If anything happens to my Baby, I'll..."

"Calm down, Dean!" Sam shouted over the music, which, Dean had to admit, wasn't all that bad. As his little brother drummed on his knees and then switched to air guitar, grinning like an idiot the whole time, Dean sat back and listened to the chorus of the song.

_Don't stop, don't stop, you can get outta this_

_Don't be afraid, no no_

_Don't stop, don't stop, you can get over this_

_I'll be your friend, yeah yeah._

Smiling, Dean let his foot press down on the gas pedal a little more, and the Impala leaped forward, purring along the empty road like a prowling tiger. That last line defined his and Sam's relationship fairly well. As long as they had each other, everything would be okay, and no matter what, he'd be Sam's brother – and best friend – forever.

_Maybe,_ he thought as he reached over and ruffled his brother's long shaggy hair, _Sam's music wasn't all that bad after all._

* * *

_Next chapter to follow...(as soon as I write it! LOL)_


End file.
